More about this DVD  •  DVD Info  •  Movie Main Page  •  Message Board

This is not a cartoon for young children. The film deals with difficult themes like death, abandonment, poverty and starvation, and is quite depressing. It uses animation as a form of heightened realism to illustrate events that would be difficult to capture with live actors, especially children. Regardless, it is a compelling piece of drama that is sure to provoke an emotional reaction from almost all viewers mature enough to understand its subject matter. The story is sometimes sentimental but never sloppy or maudlin. Its portrayal of children struggling to survive on their own once society has turned a blind eye to them is unnervingly realistic and times almost unbearable to watch. The movie is a cruel reminder of the real human losses behind war, the innocent bystanders who have no interest in fighting for ambiguous ideological goals. Yet it never descends to the level of propaganda. The Japanese struggle is hardly seen as noble or heroic, and the enemy in this battle is not some evil menace; it is an unseen, incomprehensible force reaching down from the sky like the hand of God. The children don’t know who the Americans are or understand why their village has been destroyed. They just know that something bad has happened and they must rely on each other for strength.

An ideal introduction to the world of anime for viewers who are skeptical about its merits, Grave of the Fireflies is an excellent film sure to have plenty of resonance in these days as world governments are attempting to drum up support for a new war. The lessons it teaches will remain timeless so long as we continue to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Video: How Does The Disc Look?

Grave of the Fireflies was released once before on DVD in a non-anamorphic letterbox transfer. I do not have that disc for comparison, but judged on its own this new anamorphically-enhanced remaster, framed at approximately 1.85:1, looks decent. The film has an intentionally soft, painted look that comes across well for the most part. Some colors are fuzzy, especially the pinkish reds at the beginning of the movie, but “flesh” tones are generally accurate and the majority of the color palette seems well rendered if not particularly flashy. There are moments when the middle of the screen appears to be slightly out of focus despite a moderate amount of artificial edge enhancement. Compression quality is adequate but imperfect, with artifacting visible at various points throughout the movie. This may not be a reference quality image, but it supports the film well enough and will please most fans.

Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The movie’s soundtrack is available in its original Japanese language or in a lousy English dub that loses the nuance and realism of the original Japanese performances and sounds decidedly like it was cast with adult actors playing children. Both are presented in Dolby 2.0 Stereo. If run through Pro-Logic decoding there is next to no surround activity, even during the most active firebombing sequences (I think I may have noticed a little bit of ambiance bleed in some scenes). The Japanese track is rather dull- sounding, with little dynamic range and practically no bass. Although mostly free of hiss or distortion, some of the dialogue is a little shrill. Given the age, origin and budget of the film the sound quality is acceptable and rarely distracting, but I was perhaps hoping for a little more.

One of the featurettes in the disc’s supplement section makes the specific claim that the Japanese and English soundtracks should sound identical in all respects except for the dialogue, and that unlike many anime DVDs the English track has not been “sweetened” to sound better. Nonetheless, when switching between the two the English track here is indeed slightly louder and clearer than its Japanese counterpart. After volume adjustment it is not a dramatic improvement, but there is still a difference. Make of that what you will.

Optional English subtitles have been provided, but no other translation options or closed captioning.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

On Disc 1, a storyboard track can be accessed by using the Alternate Angle function. The black & white sketches are anamorphically enhanced and run for the entire length of the feature. Depending on one’s patience for watching storyboards, this is an interesting application for presenting them. I would personally not choose to watch the entire movie this way, but I did flip back and forth to them for some of the biggest scenes.

The remaining supplements are found on Disc 2. We start with a 12-minute Interview with Roger Ebert, expressing his admiration for the film. As always, Ebert is an eloquent speaker but the conversation here is quite low-key. Following this is a 17-minute Interview with Isao Takahata, the director of the movie. His talk is also interesting if not terribly exciting. Next we have a pair of text supplements, a Bio for Author Akiyuki Nosaka and a Bio for Director Isao Takahata, both of which automatically progress from page to page on a fixed timer and do not allow manually stepping through the pages; I found this frustrating.

A 6-minute Japanese Release Promo features interviews with the author and director. It appears to be a typical Electronic Press Kit affair. The DVNR Featurette runs only 4 minutes but is one of the most interesting supplements. Here the technical staff from Central Park Media demonstrate the video cleanup and remastering process that they applied to the movie, including one point where they actually boast about adding edge enhancement to the picture, as if this were a good thing. Perhaps someone should enlighten them as to how annoying edge halos are on a large screen.

The most informative supplement on the disc is the 11-minute Historical Perspective featurette. Two history book authors, one American and one Japanese, discuss the point in time depicted by the film and the effect of the war on Japanese society. The American author seems completely oblivious to the fact that the “brilliant” campaign to demoralize the Japanese public entailed the destruction and loss of thousands of innocent lives.

The Art Gallery is a 3-minute montage of stills from the movie, and the even-shorter Locations: Then and Now piece compares artwork from the film with photographs of how the same locations currently look. Bonus Storyboards showcase black & white sketches from scenes that did not make it through the production stage. Finally, a pair of US and Japanese trailers finishes off the disc (the US trailer is for the DVD).

DVD- ROM Exclusives: What do you get when you pop the disc in your PC?

A small number of DVD-ROM supplements have been included, most of them text-based. The ROM content is not InterActual compatible and will require launching through alternate software; it may not be compatible with some operating systems.

Found here are the movie’s Script, credits for the Vocal Cast, a list of Reviews & Awards, a thorough Still Gallery, Production Credits, and a series of weblinks to Central Park Media and related web sites. An annoying music loop plays continuously while you access this material; I found it necessary to turn off my computer’s volume.

Parting Thoughts